The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (190721).VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.

XIX. Later Magazines.

§ 15. The Ladies Home Journal.

Among the magazines of a more recent generation is The Ladies Home Journal, a periodical of a sort which has always flourished in Philadelphia. This had a small beginning in 1883, and entered on its period of rapid growth with the accession of Edward W. Bok to the editorship in 1889. Bok adopted some of the methods of personal journalism, and thousands of readers who could have named no other magazine editor knew of him, and rejoiced that his career was in outline that of the traditional industrious apprentice. Even more than its predecessor, Godeys Ladys Book, The Ladies Home Journal is devoted to household arts, but it has always laid emphasis on the stories, essays, and poems that it published. Many of these make a specious sentimental appeal, but from time to time the Journal has contained noteworthy contributions from men of the rank of Kipling and Howells. Many of the million readers which it long boasted firmly believed it to be a literary magazine, and its influence on popular taste must have been considerable.